Looking through the posts at GTVault, I have seen a lot of common questions asked and answered. I've implemented a Knowledge Base as a central area to house common tips/tricks, tuning guides, etc. There are currently very few items, but this will grow over time. Let me know if you have a good write up or guide that you would like to see posted.

I just released a couple enhancements to the site. First, members who were here for the original incarnation of GTVault will remember the Site Stats section listing a total count of users and setups. I've reintroduced the Site Statistics, which you'll find at the bottom left corner of each page. It's not one of those "couldn't live without it features", which is why I didn't set it up until now.

Secondly, I retooled the Top Ten Lists. You may now look at each top ten category for the last 7 days, 1 month, 3 months, 6 months, last year, or forever. This levels the playing field by showcasing newer and recently active tuners. In addition, I added a new category named "Votes per Setup". Enjoy!

Each year GM sponsors an event held in select cities around the US called the Auto Show in Motion. I attended the event last year and had a great time. I had the chance to drive an '04 Z06 and a ton of other cars, including a lot of the competition. I'm already registered for the 2005 event and wanted to get the word out to those who are interested and have access to one of the following locations:

Anaheim, CA 8/11 - 8/14
Pomona, CA 8/18 - 8/21
Kansas City, KS 8/25 - 8/28
Houston, TX 9/8 - 9/11
San Diego, CA 9/15 - 9/18
Dallas, TX 9/15 - 9/18
Chicago, IL 9/29 - 10/2
Las Vegas, NV 10/6 - 10/9
St. Louis, MO 10/13 - 10/16
San Francisco, CA 10/20 - 10/23
San Jose, CA 11/10 - 11/13

I hope some of you can make it!

Users of Mozilla Firefox and other other RSS readers can now take advantage of GTVault RSS Setup feeds. The new feeds mirror the content in the "New Setups" sidebar, and are linked at the bottom of the "New Setups" sidebar. Here are the direct URLs:

GT4 New Setups
GT3 New Setups

If you aren't familiar with RSS or what it does, I highly recommend you look here or here for more info. RSS can make your web experience a whole lot simpler.

I had to delay development on a lot of useful features during the release of GTVault for GT4. One of those features was a Prize Car List. The permanent link to the list is located in the Navigation section at the left. A couple notes:

• Each list column can be sorted by clicking the column header.
  
• Each list column can be filtered by typing a search string and then clicking the "Filter" button at the top right corner. Filters can be reset by clicking the "View All" button, also at the top right.
  
• League name links redirect to a list of Events for each league.
  
• Event name links redirect to the detail page for each event.
  
• Make links filter the Prize Car List for each make.
  
• Car name links redirect to the detail page for each car.
  
• Just like all other GTVault features, the list is backward compatible for GT3.
  

I hope you guys can get some use out of it. The filters should help out quite a bit.

Kerr

I went to the Chicago Auto Show in early February. I've been meaning to post some shots I took, but it's obviously been low priority. For anyone who's never been and plans to attend, go early in the day. The throngs of people get much worse as the day wears on. I had a great time though and would like to do it again someday.

Lotus Elise (purple) - The paint on this one looked beat up
Lotus Elise (red)
Ferrari F430
Morgan Aero 8 - This car's in PGR2 on XBox. Sort of pretty or ugly depending on how you look at it.
Corvette C6R - This car should be in GT4.
Porsche Carrera GT - So should this one.
Bentley Continental GT
Cadillac STS-V - I couldn't get a good pic of the engine compartment cutaway, but it was impressive.
Aston Martin DB9
Ford Shelby GR1 Concept - This was the hit of the show. The skin is made of polished aluminum. The car is not at all blue, that's just the lighting.
Ferrari 360 Challenge
Jeep Hurricane Concept - This thing has two Hemi motors in it. It was the coolest thing I've seen out of Jeep in years.
Jaguar Advanced Lightweight Coupe Concept - Aston envy.
Lexus LF-A Concept
Lexus LF-C Concept
Noble M12 GTO-3R - I would trade 20 of the Skylines in GT4 for this car.
BMW M5 - Ugly but a damn impressive piece of technology.
Maserati Spyder
Lamborghini Mucielago
Audi R8
Jaguar S-Type R
Lexus SC430 - Totally blacked out with BBS rims.
The floor - I tried to get a picture that captured the scale of the show. You're looking at about 5% of the show here.
Mercedes-Benz SLR McLaren - I hate the rear end of these.
Pontiac Solstice
Subaru Impeza WRX - with lots of SPT parts.
Toyota #10 IndyCar - I saw Darren Manning finish 7th in this car @ Kansas Speedway. It seemed everyone was cheering for Danica Patrick as she took the pole. She ended up in 9th.
Chrysler test track - The size of some auto shows I've attended.
Aston Martin Vanquish
Corvette C2 Convertible - a 1966 if I recall. Corvette aficionados please keep me honest.
Dodge Viper Coupe

I was hoping I'd not have to write a post about this, but apparently there are a lot more assholes playing GT4 than there was GT3. Quite simply, if you are caught stealing setups from another tuner, all of your setups will be deleted and you will be banned. This goes for setups posted anywhere on the web.

My apologies go out to the tuners whose setups were stolen. All known instances of plagiarism have been removed. Let me know immediately if you see any in the future.

For clarification, it is not prohibited to use one's setup as the basis for your own. Give credit where it's due.

I've seen this asked a few times in various areas, and both the racers and tuners seem to be in favor of a dedicated area for setup requests. In lieu of a more organized approach, feel free to post your setup requests to this thread. I have an idea for setup requests that ties in with the car lists, but I don't know how easily I can make it happen.

The new GTVault is finally here. 18 months in the making, you're looking at the combined contribution of some of the most dedicated people I've had the pleasure of working with. I started this project alone, just as I had when developing the original GTVault. When I learned of GT4's much expanded scope, I knew that completing the site on my own would drive me insane. Even with the help, I think in some ways it still has.

Anyway, I'd l ike to personally thank (in alphabetical order) DTW, Fumes, hal2000 and tito_de_vito for their support in the development of the new GTVault. The site you see today would not be a reality otherwise. Thanks to all of you guys for hanging in there and seeing this through to the end. I'd also like to thank the many people who provided me tips and direction on the new site. There are too many to name, but you know who you are. And finally, thanks to everyone for being so patient during this time. Oh, and a big "no thanks" to Polyphony Digital for ignoring all my requests for information about GT4. You guys really know how to support a grassroots type community. Kudos.

The new GTVault has been totally redesigned from the ground up, so listing all the changes here would be futile. Explore the site and you'll hopefully find it to be much easier to navigate and find what you need. I strongly recommend checking out the FAQ. It's a work in progress, but it should have enough to get everyone moving along. I hope everyone enjoys the site and finds all the new functionality useful. There is much more I'd like to do, however I must take a long overdue break for the time being.

Please, don't hesitate to post your thoughts (good or bad) about the new site.

Two things everyone should be aware of:

• You will have to login one time due to GTVault using new servers. If you can't remember your password, click the Lost Password link.
  
• As of 6/21/2005, I have a new web host and have just pointed the gtvault.com domain to the new servers. This usually takes a couple days to update across the Internet. [Temporary address removed as it's been 5 days since the transition]
  

Cyberchump sent me a copy of a nice write-up he's done on comparing the LM cars at Circuit de la Sarthe II. See the first post in this thread for the full text.

Thanks, Cyberchump!